The existing preparation of the pyrazole ring required recrystallizations to remove the unreacted hydrazine 40 and the regioisomers, which were generated during the cyclization. The need for this purification added significantly to the solvent and waste disposal requirements, leading the chemists to target the ring formation for optimization to reduce the ecological footprint of the process.
The improvements came from a thorough understanding of the mechanistic underpinnings of the reaction. The key question concerned the formation of the 2–3% levels of impurity 44 (Scheme 11). The experiences with other pyrazoles during the developmental work suggested that the level of regioisomeric impurity could be much lower. The chemists discovered that the presence of water would lead to the hydrate of the diketone, which in turn influenced the formation of 44, as did the concentration of the hydrazine. Thus, the water concentration was kept low and the hydrazine's effective concentration was reduced by adding it as the HCl salt instead. This salt had limited solubility in the now non-aqueous solution until the diketone sodium salt was added, which neutralized enough salt to lead to a controlled reaction. This clever self-moderating reaction reduced the production of the regioisomer to 0.5%, permitting the direct isolation of pure Celecoxib from the reaction mixture by simple water dilution and cooling. It is unusual to find a process that permits a direct isolation of the API without some additional purification.
The green benefits established by the subtle, but significant changes above are numerous. Only two benign solvents (methanol and isopropanol) are now needed. The yield increased from 63 to 84%, decreasing waste production by 35% and reducing the use of the hazardous hydrazine. The reactor throughput increased 50%. The change in reaction conditions now meant that product isolation only required cooling to 20°C instead of 5°C. Finally, the cleaner product permitted a change in the cake wash solvent from 100% isopropanol to 50% aqueous isopropanol. This process eliminated the use of the undesirable solvents methylene chloride and hexane, and when combined with the other changes, eliminated the need for 5200 metric tons of solvent annually. Figures 1 and 2 graphically demonstrate the greening of the Celecoxib manufacture process.